Would be stupid to rely on them for anything other than basic file storage at this point.
It's not suitable to store anything that sensitive, but for regular stuff, they are becoming a powerhouse, and the web app allows you to work very efficiently and fast.
I personally like Dropbox, and don't find the direction they're heading ill-advised.
The thing is, its hard to have a product thats important to you and does cool things but also you don't rely on for anything crucial. Esp when its file storage.
Crucial and sensitive are different things. I trust them with the files I actively and regularly use, but I don't trust them with anything that needs encryption, which is a tiny sliver of what I have in terms of files.
Keeping things backed up is an entirely different conversation, though.
Ironically I stopped using Dropbox when they started trying to branch out into all the other stuff. I doubt I'll go back at this point though.
It seemed that they were not allocating any resources to the project.
I did check back every year or so for entertainment purposes. Mine was migrated in November of 2024.
https://web.archive.org/web/20200615075409/https://www.dropb...
If I go to paper.dropbox.com, I only see six under "starred" in the left hand side (after unfolding the tree) and two in the main area. After opening another starred one, which links into dropbox, the main area now shows three.
So the migration to dropbox did mostly work for me, but whatever was left at paper.dropbox.com is messed up.
Oh that's great! I currently use OneDrive because of Personal Vault (and other smaller reasons), because no one else offered something like it. I didn't even know about Vault, but I guess that's for the better because I wouldn't want the folder holding my ID etc. becoming accessible to every single app connected to my Dropbox.
There had to have been a better way to discontinue it. Even making the folder require migration on next access would've been better than silently worsening it.
It should be obvious that "a whole collaborative office suite" is not the kind of thing a regular company can build as an extension play... but somehow some manager inside Dropbox convinced them that direction was possible. At least for a while. Seems they've gradually come to their senses.
1. App integration (3rd parties can access to a single folder in your Dropbox, allowing "purchase to Dropbox" directly. Many merchants automatically update the files if they receive updates, too.
2. Auto OCR, incl. handwriting. My old comics which are not English are OCRd, and I can do full-text search inside them, which is very useful for me.
3. Fast, auto transcription in many languages. I needed a transcription of a file recently. All services needed memberships, etc. I did it from Google cloud API toolbox. However when I uploaded the the same file to Dropbox, I saw a transcription button. It produced equally good results in way less time.
4. Send-a-copy (aka Transfer). I don't want to share and try to remember to disable links. My Dropbox membership contains a complete "WeTransfer" replacement, and I use it a lot.
5. Request files. I open a link, people send in the files I need, then the "dropbox" closes automatically. I get notifications for uploads, too.
6. Funnily, a working Linux client.
...and possibly more I don't use or can't remember right now.
I don't know how it is these days, wouldn't be surprised if other commercial services still haven't figured it out.
I also overstayed with Dropbox for that reason, and now I don't see a real reason for their higher $/GB. Though their client is more stable than Google Drive from my experience (which randomly stops working on Windows often enough), OneDrive has been rock solid for me on both Windows and macOS.
Koofr is a decent cloud solution. Their client is horrendous across all platforms and lacks the most basic functionalities.
You can argue OneDrive / GoogleDrive are semi decent if you also use insync, which adds another license to purchase when a basic client should come free with the service you've already bought.
And no, rsync doesn't come even close to it in terms of functionality/simplicity, no matter how much hardened Linux users who haven't been outside since 1988 are trying to convince everyone otherwise.